


Stars on the ceiling

by iriswesttt



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-15
Updated: 2016-08-15
Packaged: 2018-08-08 20:23:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7771864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iriswesttt/pseuds/iriswesttt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Westallen college roommates AU</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“Oh my God, will you stop? He is not a serial killer!” Iris said exasperatedly to her very annoying, and worried (Iris had to admit she held the best of intentions) best friend.

“How can you know?” Linda asked, “I mean, how can you know? For sure, for sure?”

Iris rolled her eyes at her.

Linda seemed determined to keep Iris from moving into this new apartment she had found ever since Iris told her she met the guy on an app designed to match people for living together, _kinda like tinder, but for roommates_.

“My dad ran his file,” Iris justified for the 15th time.

It wasn’t like Joe West would ever allow his daughter to move in with someone who had a record, and he needed to make sure. Check and then double check.

“He might be using a false name and security number, he might have never been caught,” Linda argued. “He might be a perv who is also a well-versed hacker.”

And Iris understood her worry. Firstly because it wasn’t like Iris at all to do something like this; just a couple months ago, she refused to let Linda set up a tinder profile for her, arguing that wasn’t how she wanted to meet the love of her life.

Secondly because, yeah, it was a scary world out there, but Iris had a good feeling about him while talking on the phone, his profile picture on the app made him look like anything but a serial killer, and she had checked with Sophia, her friend who had a job on the University administration’s offices, and he wasn’t lying about being a double major or anything school related.

And her dad had run his files. She was pretty sure he was ok.

Besides, Iris was desperate.

“And he racked into the government database?” she questioned Linda, expressing all of her incredulity in her voice. Linda was always the one pointing out how Iris had good intuition; she wasn’t understanding the sudden change of heart.

“Your parents can’t be cool with this!” Linda argued, changing strategies. She had been doing it all week. Well, for the last 4 days anyway.

“I know Joe and Francine, they are not cool with this.”

“Which is why I need a little bit of support,” Iris begged.

“You met the guy on the internet, Iris!” she argued; “I mean, he was using that app for weirdos.”

“ _I_ was using the app for weirdos!”

“Yeah,” Linda nodded while throwing the last book on Iris’s side of bookshelf inside the only box still left empty in the middle of her bedroom, “and I told you not to,” she concluded.

But Iris couldn’t keep on living under her current arrangement: she had four housemates, and she shared her bedroom with Stefani, which hadn’t ever been ideal, but it was fine, until Stefani got a boyfriend and suddenly lost all her notions of boundaries on privacy and personal space.

The other bedroom was shared between the other three girls, none of them had any desire of trading with Iris, and one of them, Rose, liked leaving clothes scattered around the house, the amount of pieces exponentially increasing the closer it got to her bed. Not to mention Lana who liked to cook the most aromatic food at 4 in the morning.

She just couldn’t keep on living there.  

But it was the middle of the term, which meant there were no on campus housing left available, and any flat off campus cost way too much for Iris to afford it by herself, so when she saw the free bedroom on an apartment, a 5-minute-walk away from the campus entering right by the English Department building, it seemed too good to be true.

It was true though. Barry Allen was roommate-less and looking.

He sent her a snap of him doing a tour, showing the place, and it made the flat seem perfect; clean (Barry told her he suffered from OCD, information the app requested for you to disclosure and that Iris was withholding from Linda at all costs), and spacious, and flooded with loads of natural light. And his voice and the way he talked, combined with Iris’s desperation, had made her decide to take upon the offer without much further thought.

“I can’t keep living here, Linda,” Iris reminded her. “It is driving me insane! I mean, I need my own room, I need less people around, I need a place that stays clean and doesn’t smell like fish.”

“Moving in with someone you never even met is not the answer, Iris.”

“Since when are you the paranoid one?” she asked, packing the rest of her beauty products in the box of, well, basically anything still left to pack, that Linda had labeled _Iris’s crap._

“Since you became the person who moves in with someone from the weirdo app,” Linda argued; “Believe me, I’m not enjoying it.”

“He is nice, ok? You haven’t even met him.”

“Neither have you,” she said throwing Iris’s throw-pillows into the box and she noticed Linda was showing less and less care with her stuff the more frustrated she got.

When Iris showed her the video, Linda seemed to be sure she was bluffing, it was only now, that Iris got all of her clothes already in the suitcase and most of her stuff in boxes that it appeared to be dawning on her that Iris would go through with it. Hence the nagging.

“Hey,” Linda said, changing her tone of voice to a seductive one and Iris knew exactly what was coming next; “I know a place that stays clean.”

“No. I’m definitively not moving in with you and my brother. I would rather _see_ Stefani fucking Jonh than _hear_ you and my baby brother. Ever.”

“We are not that loud, and will you please stop calling him your _baby brother?_ People think I’m some sort of pedophile when you talk like this. He’s like, one year younger than us.” Linda argued.

“He is a year and 8 months younger than you.” Iris argued, and it was dangerous territory since Wally liked to make fun of his girlfriend for it, but maybe it would change the subject.

Linda rolled her eyes at Iris.

Throughout most of high school, Wally had a blant crush on Linda, but Linda kept insisting that she would _never ever_ date Iris’s _punk baby brother,_ her words, not Iris’s, until their senior year. Until the one day, when Joe and Francine were away for the weekend, celebrating their anniversary, that the three of them decided to get drunk and watch a whole lot of TV and Iris ended up spending the night watching the movies they had picked by herself because all the sudden, Linda figured out she found _Iris’s punk baby brother_ hot.  

“So then how about the West’s residence, hun?” Linda tried, but Iris really didn’t want to move back home. She lived home the entirety of her first two years of college and, after barely moving out, to move back in would feel too much like failure, so none of the arguments Linda would use next would suffice. It didn’t stop her though;

“Free of rent, and of the smell of fish and of people fucking each other. Well —”

“Oh my god, don’t you finish that thought! Shut up and tape the box,” Iris instructed.

 

* * *

 

 

The palm of his hands were sweating. Barry rubbed them on his jeans. He hated when that happened.

Iris said she would arrive at 2 o’clock, 2:30 tops, and it was now 2:45 and there was no sign of her. She did send him a text telling that _packing up her crap_ had taken longer than she was expecting for it to so she would be a little late and now Barry was obsessively re-reading it and checking if she showed up online.

They hadn’t met yet, so this very probably qualified as the craziest thing Barry had ever done; getting a roommate he had never ever met.

He had talked to Iris though, he sent her a little apartment tour and she had called him up merely seconds afterwards, telling him she wanted the room, and just the sound of her laughter as she reacted to something he said soothed Barry into a certainty that it had been the right decision.

Now he was having a moment of self doubt though; there was a real chance the app was actually shitty and only matched her to him because they went to the same school and lived on the same area. If she were to start leaving candy wrappers around like Cisco used to, or if she would leave her clothes all around and never do her dishes like Ronnie used to, then Barry would end up changing a messy best friend and a messy friend to a messy random person for roommate which sounded like a terrible deal. At least living with Cisco and Ronnie, he knew what exactly he was dealing with, but now...  

He had no extra time to dwell on it though because his interphone buzzed letting him know Iris arrived.

Iris was shorter than he was expecting, she reached a bit above his shoulder and she was _small_ , like _tiny_ even. She was also way prettier than he was expecting. Barry had seen some of her pictures on Instagram (before deciding that creeping through it when they were going to live together was a pretty bad idea and shutting the app so he could avoid temptation) and they did not do her justice. Not that she wasn’t pretty in the photos; it was just, when she was moving and talking and smiling, that was just… she was probably the most beautiful person he had ever seen in real life. Like _electric-shock-through-your-body_ beautiful.

She was accompanied by a girl and a boy, each holding a box as well. He noticed how Iris and the boy shared the same chin and how their smiles wrinkled their eyes just the same, and he got the confirmation as Iris told him;

“This is my brother Wally,” and she had definitely been luckier in the genes lottery, “my friend Linda, they’re helping me move.”

“Right,” Barry said after probably spending way too long being mesmerised by her eyes, her bright, warm and deep eyes; “of course, come in, I’ll give you guys a tour, I mean, probably Iris’s room first, so you can put the boxes in place, right,” he mumbled. _Why did he had to be this awkward?_

After that Barry helped Wally with the rest of the boxes while Iris and Linda started with the unpacking, and three rounds in, down and up again from Iris’s car, filled by an uncomfortable silence, Wally said;

“Linda is afraid you might be a serial killer.”

Barry hoped for the life of him that there wasn’t anything breakable in the box he was holding because he dropped that to the ground with a loud thud that shook the old elevator off center a little bit.

“I’m not,” he said, because _how_ should one respond to that? “I’m not a serial killer.”

“She’s paranoid cause Iris never does stuff like that. Moving in with strangers, I mean.”

“Right,” Barry offered, _neither do I_ he wanted to say, but he kept quiet instead.

“But just so you know, our dad is a detective at CCPD, and our mom is a DA. Besides Iris can take you,” Wally added, measuring Barry up and down with severe eyes, then he explained;

“She boxes ever since we were kids so, hell, she can take me,” he said, a little proud smile on his lips, but then he turned serious again and instructed; “don’t tell her I admitted that.”

Barry bit his smile down and decided to say nothing after that because there was absolutely nothing he could think to say, but on the fourth and last trip to Iris’s car (how much stuff could a girl have?), Wally was way more talkative, covering subjects that did not involve how his sister could kick Barry’s ass and how their parents could legally hunt him down and throw him in jail for life in case something were to happen, and Barry found out he was an engineering major like Cisco, and that he had professor Klein for physics, to which Barry offered his condolences.

By the time Wally and Linda left, Barry had found out that Linda and Iris were best friends since kindergarden and that she was dating Wally since high school, which in Iris’s terms, made her the number 1 honorary West.

After they left though, Iris grew very quiet and excused herself into her bedroom, to organise her things, spending the rest of the day behind closed doors and Barry wondered if she, like her best friend, was afraid he would turn out a creep.

It was 8:30 already when he decided to knock on her door and when she opened it, she was no longer wearing her jeans; she was in short shorts, knee socks, a sleeveless top and a zipped down jumper, and Barry needed to focus above her head for a few seconds because the first thing that popped into his mind was how he could tell she wasn’t wearing a bra.    

“Hey, sorry,” he apologised, regretting it immediately because what if she figured exactly what he was apologising for? But Iris had a little smile on her lips as she answered;

“Hi.”

“I — I was just about to make dinner. I was wondering if you wanted that too — I mean, it’s pasta, nothing fancy, but I do make a mean sause.”

She laughed at that and his embarrassment was almost worth the sound of it, but she didn’t comment on it, merely stating;

“I would love some pasta.”

After dinner and talking a little; Iris told him about the internship she had recently gotten on CCPN and Barry told her how he was trying for one at STAR Labs, and after spending a good amount of time playing with her fork and the empty plate in front of her, when the talk died down for a little bit she said;

“Thank you for dinner. It was a mean sauce.”

“Oh, god! You are never letting this go, are you?”

She laughed her pretty laugh and her eyes shined wickedly at him as she pushed herself up off the chair and told him with a ridiculously dorky wink;

“Not a chance,” then extending her arm at him, she asked; “plate, please?”

So Barry pushed himself up as well and said;

“No, no, I’ll do the dishes.”

“But you already cooked,” Iris argued, though offering no resistance when he took her plate from her hands.

“You moved in today,” he justified

Barry felt Iris’s eyes on him as he walked to the sink and when he turned to check if he was feeling it right Iris did a cat stretch on place, one that caused her top to ride up, exposing up almost to her belly button and all the hair on Barry’s body prickled on his skin and he rubbed his hands together, trying to understand the sudden preposterous need to grab her.

“Thank you,” she said again; “I still have loads of boxes and I’m completely destroyed. I really shouldn’t have taken that power yoga class yesterday.”

He turned to the sink, shaking himself out it, willing the shiver away. Reminding himself she was his roommate and how much of a terrible idea that was, and then she passed by him on her way to the fridge, to grab a bottle of water, and God, he was so screwed.

 

* * *

 

Iris could have been blown away by surprise when she opened the door to her bedroom and found Barry Allen sitting on the edge of her bed.

“I thought you had a date,” she said, tightening the towel around her body. About now would be the worst time for a slip. Or the best, _who knew?_

That was the thing about liking, as _being in like with,_ your roommate; there was no escaping it. He was there when she woke up and when she went to sleep, and he was there when she was having a good day and when she was having a bad one too; they had breakfast together every morning and dinner together almost every night and she ridiculously missed him the nights they didn’t.

Not that it had been the same with the girls she lived with before Barry, but there were five of them, their schedules were kinda hectic and all over the place and they had hardly ever been all at the house at the same time.

But Barry and her shared roughly a similar routine; they woke up around the same time, and went to uni around the same time, and unless he was spending the night with one of his experiments (chemistry experiments; there weren’t many girls — or boys, Iris was still not completely sure about that — experiments, and until now, none over night) he was usually already home when she got back from her internship.

And that was the other thing; it felt like home, _he felt like home_. Which the other place never did. Which scared her shitless.

“I did,” he answered without actually facing her, apparently her velvet cornflower-blue bed throw was extremely interesting as Barry kept watching his own fingers slightly moving on it.

“That was quick,” Iris pointed out, turning her back on him, to face her chest of drawers, and debating whether or not she wanted for him to watch her picking her panties.

“Turns out, not a soul mate,” Barry said and she could sense his eyes on her back, so she allowed the towel to lower a little down her spine, revealing a little bit more of skin, which, if she was being completely honest, had probably a greater effect on herself than on Barry. She was never really sure boys did find backs all that enticing.

“Can you turn around?” she asked, her eyes finding an angle on her mirror where she could see him reflected on and watched as Barry closed his eyes and turned, per her request, to face the head of her bed (the only furniture she had actually brought over to the apartment, since all the rest of it came with the place, and Barry already had everything else that didn’t. She actually liked how the metal seemed weightless against the rest of the wooden furniture of the room).

Iris slipped into her panties and into the first t-shirt she could find, blindly searching for it on the second drawer, while keeping her eyes on Barry, through the mirror, and once she was reasonably dressed, she offered;

“Not everyone has to be a soulmate, sometimes thinking like that can make you forget that just kissing can be fun.”

Barry shrugged his shoulders and now she was definitely sure he watched as she put on her sleeping trousers.

“I don’t want to just kiss,” Barry justified.

Iris joined him in bed and Barry seemed to take that as permission, slouching up to fully sit on it, his back against the head of the bed, as Iris laid her head on three pillows by his side.

“Why not?” she asked, and they had talked about pretty much everything in those three months, Iris felt like there was nothing about him she didn’t know and there was nothing about her he didn’t, with the exception of their love lives.

All she knew about his date was that is was with the blonde nerdy girl that took one of Barry’s classes with him. She had seen Felicity around, not at their place — the only ones that had actually been to their place were Wally and Linda and her parents and Ronnie, Caitlin and Cisco — but Iris had seen them together on campus; she had even had coffee with them one day when they accidently bumped into each other on the Jitters, and Felicity was smart and pretty and adorable and until now, Iris thought probably perfect for Barry, and as much as Iris wanted for him to be happy, she had to admit she felt a great relief their date had flopped.

Not that she was planning on doing something about her _crush_ (yeah, crush. Crush was a safe word) on Barry; they lived together, and she liked living together, and even if he did feel the same, which he so totally didn’t, it was a terrible idea. One of the world’s most terrible ideas.  Definitely below the Germany’s invasion of Poland but probably above British’s exit from the EU.

And Barry took a long time to answer her question, his eyes weighting on her as he blinked his obnoxious-long-eyelashes (Linda had come up with the term and Iris thought it very fitting), sleep filling his pretty green eyes;

“I don’t know, I don’t find kissing all that fun when I’m not in love,” he said, his voice serious, pondering.

“And how many times you’ve been in love?” she asked teasingly, but something suddenly sitting heavy on her chest made Iris realise she probably didn’t want the answer.  

Barry turned pink and mumbled;

“Once,” like it was some kind of dirty confession.

Iris laughed at it and brought her hand to his hair, and when he didn’t move away, she traced the pad of her fingers to his eyelashes. She didn’t want to insist that he should keep on seeing Felicity, or that he should put himself out there.

She wanted him all to herself, and for once, her selfishness outweighed her instinct to comfort him, to assure him he would find some incredible person that would match him and that he would want to kiss them all the time.

“What about you?” he asked as Iris turned off the light, and even though she knew it wasn’t what he meant she said;

“I do like kissing.”

She could see Barry shaking his head, laying by her;

“No, how many times you’ve been in love?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been in love,” she confessed. _I hope I’m not in love with you_ , she kept to herself.

And Iris turned to face her ceiling and it was another reminder that she was very probably hoping in vain: Barry had stuck little stars that glowed in the dark on it. His Christmas present for her.

He said nothing about it, not even when she gave him the pocket watch she found in an antique store.

(Once, Barry told her he was always late because he couldn’t wear watches since they bothered him way too much on his wrist. Iris knew it was silly, he could check the time on his cellphone anyway, but she had thought of Barry immediately when she had seen it, and she liked that it was old and that it looked old - like it had belonged to gentleman who had to sell it during the war, or at least Iris like to imagine so - and it that had _BH_ engraved on it, so she pretend she hadn’t listened to Linda’s snag; _would you look at that? it’s like fate_ , and Iris bought it even though there were two months to Christmas. Later she had even found a cute card with Alice’s White Rabbit drawn on it and inside Iris had written; _no excuses now_ ).   

So Iris wasn’t expecting to get anything from him, she was fine with it, but then later that day, the day Barry left to spend his Christmas break at his parent’s in Coast City, Iris turned the lights of her bedroom off before going to bed and there were stars on the ceiling. The next day, she found a little note on her desk’s drawer and it read; _I’m afraid I might have failed Orion, let’s just pretend like I didn’t. I do hope you have a merry starry Christmas. Love, Barry._

And Iris couldn’t believe that he remembered it; one of the endless conversations they had during the week she had moved in. She told him how in her old house, the one before the one her parents currently lived in, she had had fluorescent stars glued on the ceiling of her bedroom and how when she was 7, she cried for weeks because they couldn’t take the stars when they moved, and how that was probably what she missed most about her childhood.

Now every time she looked at her ceiling she was reminded about Barry, about how careful he was, about how sweet and kind and attentive he was. Like she needed anything else other her own brain to make him the last thought she had before falling asleep.

 

* * *

 

Barry greatly concentrated on which ice-cream to pick. There was no pistachio, like Iris had requested, to go with her pistachio brownies, so he was debating whether to pick the plain vanilla one or a double chocolate one.

He was about to send her a text because once he accidently picked the wrong kind of coffee while doing the groceries (in his defence, the two brands had the exact same colours and very similar fonts, which should be illegal), and Iris spent a whole day without looking at him, and Barry would like to avoid such incident again, especially with his parents staying over.

Ever since Barry started university, they would take a little vacation in the beginning of February, spend a couple of days in Central City before actually going to their destination, so he was about to send Iris the text when his mom said, under the flourescent lights of the store;

“Barry, honey, I don’t think that is such a great idea.”

His mom had offered to accompany him in the trip to the deli right by their apartment building, and Barry suspected there was something wrong; Nora had given Iris her neighbour-smile — pleasant but obviously forced for those who knew her — but Barry also knew that it was only a matter of actually spending a little time with Iris because it was impossible not to like her.

“No, mom, it’s fine, I’m just gonna check which one Iris prefers,” because there was no need to go out on a hunt for the pistachio ice-cream, Iris’s brownies were the main event anyway.

“I mean you and Iris, Barry. I mean I don’t think it’s such a great idea for you to date your roommate.”

He somehow managed to catch his cellphone before it hit the ground, but he did knock his knees on the ice-cream fridge;

“What?!”

“I’m sure she’s a wonderful girl, Barry. I mean, I do appreciate so much that she cooked dinner while you went to pick us at the airport, she seems lovely, really, but she’s your roommate, honey, you have a two-year rent contract.”

As he didn’t respond, shock getting the best out of him, his mom continued;

“I just worry. It’s your first girlfriend and those things are usually messy, and you know how hard it is for you to find someone to live with, with the OCD and everything, and it seems to be working with Iris...”

Listening to her seemed like an out of body experience; how, why, why would she assume they were together? Barry tried to recap everything he had ever said about Iris to his parents and everything that had happened since they had arrived. It made absolutely no sense.

“Mom, no!”

“It’s not working? You said it was —”

“No, I mean, Iris and I, we are not — _dating._ ”

He obviously was hopelessly in love with her, but Iris obviously didn’t feel the same way and Barry had long since come to the conclusion that it wasn’t worth it, nothing was worth to risk their friendship and their living arrangement. He would take some form, any form, of Iris in his life rather than a ruined friendship because he had to go and fall in love with her.

(Even though how exactly someone could meet her and see her smiling and hear her laughing and look into her deep and big doe eyes and not fall in love with her was one of the biggest mysteries on earth to Barry.)

“You’re not?” his mom asked, incredulity impressed on her voice.

And then a panic settled in the pit of his stomach because what if the reason why she thought they were together was how obvious it was that _he_ was in love with Iris, because what if Iris noticed that too, what if someone else noticed that and pointed it out to her? He was about throw up on the ice-cream aisle, but he managed to ask;

“Why — why would you think that?”

“You are really not together?” Nora insisted.

“No! Mom!” Barry said, how could she not believe that? How could she not see that Iris would never, in a million years, fall for him? “No! We’re friends, that’s all.”

“And roommates. Is she single?”

And there was Scott, the cub in CCPN, where Iris interned, and who clearly and obviously liked her. She went out with him a couple of times after she helped him with a story and Scott managed to convince the editor they should share the byline — which personally, Barry thought to be nothing more than fair since Iris did half of the job anyway, but Iris had found the gesture extremely gallant so Barry suspected she was half in love with Scott, but that was about a month ago and Iris never brought Scott over to the apartment and she never referred to him as anything close to a boyfriend, (even though Barry was fairly certain they kissed, because _Iris liked kissing_ ), and she had never had a sleepover at his place or anything, so Barry had figured that the sickness he felt every time Scott’s name came up was just his anxiety making life harder.

“I don’t know, I think so. Why would you think we’re dating?”

“Barry, come on,” she said like it was plain clear.

“Mom, what?”

“The coffee thing?” she asked.

And yeah, when they arrived from the airport, Iris was drinking what Barry thought to be coffee so he questioned her about it, but really, only because Iris needed someone to at least try to regulate her caffeine intake or otherwise she would survive on coffee and refined sugar and no sleep. It turned out to be tea, green tea, she confessed after Barry grabbed the mug to check it because he wasn’t new to it and  knew she was lying about it being “herbal tea”, but green tea was better than another cup of coffee anyway, and it was nothing.

It was so far from meaning they were together that he couldn’t believe that was what made him mom jump to the conclusion.

“Iris just drinks way too much coffee, that’s all,” he justified.

“And you worry,” she added.

“Yeah, because she’s my friend.”

“And not because you’re in love with her?” she asked.

“Mom!” and he was sure he had reached a whole new level of blushing, he was probably past red and into a purple shade, and it _was_ obvious, and he was so screwed.

Barry tried so hard to not let it show and his mom needed about five minutes at their place to notice it, and she didn’t even know that every now and again, they would sleep in each other’s bed, or about how many nights they spend up talking or about how they were planning to keep living together after graduation and going to Europe next summer because Iris had never been and he only ever went with his parents when he was 12. Or about how much he wanted to kiss her on her perfectly shaped lips and touch her all the time.

“I’m not —” he said, because he couldn’t even finish the sentence, but after that he just picked the vanilla ice-cream and decided against sending Iris a text after all. Leaving her alone with his dad at the apartment seemed like a really bad idea all the sudden and he needed to just go back home.


	2. Chapter 2

Iris turned on her bed once again, checking the time on her cellphone; 2:45.

She was debating whether the lack of sleep was to blame on the fact that she had grown unaccustomed with her bed in her parents house or the fact that apparently her and Barry looked like a couple.

Either way she was blaming Barry Allen, and if she texted him right now, which she was controlling herself not to, he would blame it on her coffee intake habits.

The thing was, his parents were visiting and Iris had offered to Barry, before they arrived, that he could sleep in her room so his parents could take his and not stay in a hotel or push Barry to the sofa. But then his parents seemed to be under the impression she was Barry’s girlfriend and she couldn’t very well sleep home, sharing her bed with Barry, while they were there, under that impression and the same roof.

The first time it was by accident, the bed-sharing thing; they were watching a movie on Barry’s laptop and they’d fallen asleep, and after that it had happened every now and again, and it meant nothing, clearly, but it was one thing for it to happen when no one knew about it, it was another thing for it to happen with his parents in the next room.

It was one thing to have Linda, who knew about her crush (after much interrogation, Iris had confessed), but not about the bed-sharing, to tell her they acted like a couple; it was another for _his parents_ to just assume they were one.

Iris found that Barry and her were usually good in not giving those things, the things that - according to Linda - made them look like a couple, much importance or thought. It wasn’t forced, and she wasn’t actively stopping herself either.

The truth was she thought Linda was greatly exaggerating things for dramatic purposes. She also assumed that her feeble and failed attempt of moving on with Scott (since being in love — _ok, she was in love, she admitted it_ — with your roommate was really bad for business) had failed for reasons not totally and completely related to Barry.

Yeah, Scott had pointed out that her heart didn’t seem to be in it, and Iris knew that ultimately the reason for it was Barry, but he couldn’t have known since he hadn’t ever met Barry for longer than the 5 minutes; one day she was without her car and Barry went to pick her up at CCPN. Even though now, as she thought about it, Scott seemed to be very _resistant_ whenever she mentioned Barry.

(And she had to admit that the one time she kissed Scott, her mind was suddenly filled with _damn you, Barry Allen, for making just kissing no longer fun._ )

Still, she never actually thought they looked, or behaved anything like a couple. Iris couldn’t even look at Barry throughout dinner after that, after his dad made a comment about it, after Barry confessed his mom had assumed so too, after Barry pulled Iris aside and promised her he had never said anything as such to his parents and apologising profusely to the fact they had presumed.

She was too afraid to face him, afraid that whatever it was in her that caused his mom and his dad to think so, would be evident in her eyes and then all the sudden Barry would notice it too, and if he asked her, she wouldn’t be able to keep it from him, so she ran away the second dinner was over, and now she couldn’t sleep.

She checked the time again and, as her cellphone glowed 2:47 at her, a text from Barry arrived. _Can’t sleep_ , it stated and as Iris tried to think of what to say, because apparently she lost her ability to answer to the simplest texts all the sudden, another one arrived; _it’s too weird in your bed without you._

Her heart stopped at it and when it started back again, it seemed to need to make up to the beats it skipped, going too fast, making it hard to breath. Maybe she was just imagining the implications behind it, but maybe she wasn’t, and maybe in the whole looking like a couple thing there was a Barry-factor that until now she had been blind to.

Barry was kind to her but he was kind to everyone, and he did stuff like bring her coffee in the middle of the day and proof read her articles and help her with her Organic Chemistry class but that was because he was her friend, her roommate. Because that was who he was, this amazing and sweet person who she was lucky enough to have found, so she should keep him, and not just risk everything. And not just assume...

_It’s weird here too,_ she typed, and it wasn’t just the lack of him, it was the strangest obsession that seemed to have taken over her with trying to figure out what exactly did Mr. and Mrs. Allen thought of her, if they had found her to be poised enough, and smart enough. Good enough. For Barry.

_I miss my stars,_ she added, ( _I miss you_ seemed too silly), but she wanted to test it, just to see how he would react.

He did so by sending her a photo of her ceiling, the glow of the stars indicating he had just turned the lights off. Either that or he took the photo just after turning the lights off. Maybe he had taken it and then had spent the last couple of hours debating on whether or not send it to her. Iris liked that last hypothesis for some reason. She liked to imagine him thinking about her for no reason than that she was on his mind like he seemed to occupy so much of hers.

_I can’t believe how bad Orion turned out,_ he wrote to her, _my gluing skills are terrible._

_Shut up, I love it._

She had told him that already, the night she had found them on her ceiling, and some other times afterwards, but he seemed to enjoy the reminder, so she would remind him.

There were no new texts for a couple of minutes, and Iris stared at the _online_ status under his name, and at the vanishing and reappearing _Barry is typing_ until;

_Wanna meet at the waterfront?_ he proposed, and it seemed stupid to go out in the middle of the night under February weather to meet her roommate, whom she had spend the day with, whom she had seen mere hours ago, and still, she had no time to control her fingers as they answered to their own accord;

_Yeah, be there in 15._

And it had been a while since she had felt like such a teenager; sneaking out of the house, missing the boy she liked like crazy.

The worse of it all was feeling like she needed him so much just so she could fall asleep.

And when she got there she saw Barry’s car parked on the parking lot and he was at their favourite bench just as she expected him to, so she hugged herself tight under her wool overcoat as she approached him, feeling slightly ridiculous that she had her pyjamas underneath it, paired up with ugg boots.

“Hey,” she tried, bumping her knees to his, her voice sounding strangled for some reason, and it was strange, to not just slip into conversation with him; they never had trouble talking.

“Hi,” he said.

His nose and cheeks were pink and he looked incredibly cute with his scarf covering his mouth, which he pulled down to greet her.

Barry rubbed his hands against each other and Iris wondered if he was trying to warm up or if it was just his nervous tick ticking away, and Iris half expected for him to stand up out of the nervous energy clearly running through him,  but he didn’t. He reached for one of her hands instead and Iris allowed him to take it and pull her down to sit by his side.

The cold of the bench infiltrated through her clothes, so even though it was completely redundant she pointed out;

“It’s cold.”

“Yeah,” he agreed, pulling her closer to him until their legs were practically over each other. He never let go of her hand, only rested his overs hers and set them both on her thigh.

Barry stayed quiet for a while, but Iris could sense his eyes on her, making her warm despite the weather, as she watched the sky. She wanted to make a joke about Orion, but all her wits were failing her, so she waited until Barry offered;  

“Iris, I’m sorry about the thing with my parents.”

She turned the palm of her hand to his and slowly intertwined their fingers, hoping that would tell him what she couldn’t. She still avoided his eyes, focusing on the water in front of them. They had lunch there on a sunny Saturday a couple of weeks ago, with Wally and Linda and Cisco, and Iris had been going to the waterfront with her parents since she was little, but the place looked almost unfamiliar under the stars.

Just like having Barry’s hand in hers like that felt almost unfamiliar. Or as unfamiliar as Barry could ever feel.

“It’s ok,” she said, because he still seemed to be waiting for an answer.

“Is it?” he asked, and maybe he was just waiting for her eyes to meet his, so she complied as she assured him;

“Yeah.”

He blinked softly and slowly, eyelashes tangling together.

“It’s weird there without you,” he told her, his green eyes on hers, analysing, searching. And he had such pretty eyes. It never ceased to impress her all the different hues that made it up, bright and honest.

“Well, it is my bedroom so I should hope so,” she joked.

“It’s not just that,” he said in the sheepishly manner that he would assume; “I miss you when you’re not there,” and the words were out of his lips like saying them was easy, and Iris couldn’t see how he could find so simple to tell her those things when she couldn’t even admit to herself she missed him without feeling rather ridiculous.

“Barry, you saw me four hours ago,” she argued, and it was her turn to watch him, as he looked away, at their hands, intertwined.

“I know,” he said, then with a little smile on his lips he questioned; “does that mean you don’t miss me?”

“Nope.”

“Not even a little?”

“Nope,” she said again, only she laughed the second time, and that put a pretty, confident, smile on Barry’s lips as he pulled her hand that he was still holding to his chest, gesturing, and asked;

“Then why did you come meet me?”

“Well, I couldn’t sleep,” she said, and now that she was looking at him she couldn’t find in herself to focus on anything else.

She wondered what he tasted like. Barry always smelled clean and Iris figured it was partially the OCD thing (which he had told her was once much worse and that the doctor had told him that most patients that managed to have it under control had it manifested in a obsession with cleanliness), and partially because he just smelled good, so that made her wonder how he tasted.

So Iris leaned in closer, halfway, enough. Enough for him to understand what she meant by it. And if the leaning didn’t cut it, then maybe the sound of her heart trying to escape her ribs would because there was no way he wasn’t listening to it, the thumps of it filled her ears, almost muffling the _Iris_ Barry uttered. But he leaned in too, bumping their cold noses together and Iris watched his eyes closing and the way his eyelashes rested on his cheeks as he captured her bottom lip between his, and Iris wanted to make sure he really did want it.

_I don’t find kissing all that fun,_ he told her once. _When I’m not in love._  

She brought her free hand to his cheek, his day-old stubble prickling her fingers, her cheek, her chin, and he tasted like he smelled, like _Barry,_ like she knew what he would taste like before she tried, and he traveled his free hand down her spine, pressing her to him as much as their positioning allowed and when he pulled away, there was a string of spit between them so Iris laughed, pondering how that was real-life, spit and all, and licked it away from his lips and as she pulled, Barry followed, as if by gravity, so she teased;

“I thought you didn’t like kissing.”

“I never said that,” he said, brushing her hair behind her ear.

“No?”

“I like kissing you,” he said, and that was about exactly what he should have said.

 

* * *

 

Her cheeks were pink and her skin, a whole lot of it left exposed by her choice of apparel, glistened as Barry approached to greet her, freeing her from her bag and placing a kiss on her temple.

“Don’t,” Iris said, stepping out of his reach, pulling the zipper from her jumper up  and covering her previous exposed belly; “I’m all sweaty.”

Barry laughed a small laugh, pulling her closer and telling her;

“I don’t mind your grime.”

He never had a proper girlfriend before Iris. There were girls, and some kissing, usually public since it had never reached the point of making-out on the sofa (except once with Becky, but he would gladly forget all about it).

The point was, Barry never really pictured himself as someone all for PDA; with all the other girls, he always had this uncontrollable need to check the surroundings before any actual kiss, and holding their hands seemed pointless and a little weird — why would someone just willingly let one of their hands occupied when there was no need for it? There had always been this self-consciousness creeping upon him, that it looked unnatural, that it felt forced and that the girl could tell how uncomfortable it was making him. But then he had never been in love before and with Iris, it was like all the world surrounding them faded away and all there was left was her, like holding her hand at all times was absolutely necessary, like touching her in someway and form was imperative.   

So after that, Iris kissed him back, one hand on the back of his neck and everything, lingering a little on his bottom lip, before stating;

“I feel like that’s a declaration of love coming from you.”

She interlaced their fingers and started to pull him out of the gym reception, towards the street, particularly busy for a Saturday morning, but Barry hadn’t had enough kissing yet, especially because Iris, in her boxing clothes, hair pulled back in two braids, was borderline an unfair vision, so he stalled her in place, reminding her in a whisper, in between two little kisses;   

“Well, I have swallowed many of your various bodily fluids, some considerably thicker than sweat.”

She gave him a proper laugh now, and Barry could see the swell of her boobs from where he was standing (he had to admit that being taller than her had its benefits, like a great point of view).

“I love when you get all biological,” Iris told him in her fake-flirting voice, which was not that far from her flirt-flirting voice and both had roughly the same effect on him.

“Well, I _loove_ you” he sing-songed and that made her laugh again, her beautiful smile spread on her face, and Iris had the most impossible smile; it was like it lit up the whole world around her, and he would have spent much longer appreciating that if someone hadn’t call;

“Nice practice, Iris.”

The guy talking was probably textbook definition of handsome, blond, blue eyes, way stronger than Barry and he stood in a way that seemed to highlight Barry’s awkwardness. He gave Iris a once over, lingering on her bare legs for way too long for Barry’s liking so he pulled Iris closer, holding her by the waist pressed to him.

At least he was way taller than blond-guy.

“Oh, thanks! You too,” Iris said, offering the guy a pretty smile, which made Barry roll his eyes involuntarily .

Barry listened to them scheduling a practice for Monday and he figured that that was probably the guy who trained her, but all those months he had pictured this guy way older, with a nose broken a couple of times and deformed ears, but now he was finding he had none, and Barry really should have paid more attention.

He probably should make a habit out of this picking-Iris-from-boxing-practice thing.

“Ok, I’ll see you Monday, then,” the guy told Iris, and then turning to Barry he said; “bye, —,” and he pointed, like he was blanking Barry’s name, so Barry held up his hand, the one holding Iris’s and told the guy;

“Boyfriend. I’m her boyfriend.”

The guy laughed and agreed;

“All right, bye, Iris’s boyfriend.”

Once they finally stepped outside Barry asked;

“Who’s that?”

But instead of answering him Iris questioned;

“Would you like to pee over me, honey?”

Like she was the one to talk. Like she didn’t made sure to appear at the end of the class he had with Felicity _just because she missed him_ , like she didn’t purposely fill his neck with love bites, and reminded him about once a day that he was _taken._

He still felt slightly ashamed, though. He really didn’t want to be _that guy_ , so he tried justifying;

“No. I was just —”

“Marking your territory?” Iris asked, but there was a smile on her lips, and she never let go of his hand, so Barry continued;

“I was merely stating to…”

“Eddie.”

“… to Eddie that I’m your boyfriend.”

“Just stating, hun?” she probed.

“You never mentioned Eddie before,” Barry said, and it was a lie, she did mentioned him, Barry was right, it was one of her trainers, but Iris never said he looked like that, so Barry felt like the comment was earned.

“Yes, I have,” she disagreed; “but you don’t pay attention when I speak.”

“I do too,” he justified; “I mean, unless you were naked,” he added because it felt like a good time to remind her he had seen her naked, didn’t matter the last time had been about two and a half hours ago;

“I find it very hard to concentrate when you are naked.”

“You don’t listen,” Iris argued, as they reached his car; “I’ve got two packs of the wrong brand of coffee at home to prove it.”

“That was once,” Barry said as he allowed her to press him against said car, and his hand jumped at her bare thigh, feeling the warm and soft skin, trying to get a shiver out of her.

“That was twice. I just drank the wrong one the first time around.”

“I feel like the first time shouldn’t really count,” Barry pouted, because that always, without fail, got a kiss from her. And as predicted, she obliged, before questioning;

“And why is that?”

“It was a genuine mistake.”

“And the second time, it wasn’t?” Iris teased.

“It was.”

“Oh, was it?”

“I just probably should have learned from previous mistakes,” Barry said, because that was exactly what Iris had told him when he arrived home with the wrong coffee.

She didn’t joke around about her coffee.

“Should you?” she teased again, and Barry decided to change the subject, after another kiss, asking;

“So, Eddie is…”

“Are you worried cause I like pretty boys?” she meowed, placing little kisses on his jaw line, pressing Barry between the car and herself and if she hadn’t, he would have actually worried, as it was he just grunted noncommittally, and Iris continued;

“You’re pretty too. You’ve got obnoxiously long eyelashes.”

“Eyelashes?” he asked, because he had noticed Iris seemed to like his eyelashes, but he was genuinely surprised that was the feature she had picked.  

“Yep,” she popped her _p._

“That’s what I got going for me?”

“Yep. Eyelashes, and the hickies I gave you yesterday,” she said, fingers holding him by the chin, guiding his face left and then right, “they look very good on your neck.”

He brought his hand to his neck, trying to find the tender skin. He had missed it looking at the mirror this morning. That would be a problem at the West-family lunch they had waiting for them the next day.

“You enjoy watching me squirm way too much.”

“I do,” she agreed, knicking the car-keys from his pocket and going around the car;

“Let’s go home,” she instructed him; “I desperately need a shower,” and when Barry pulled the door from the passenger seat closed, Iris added; “maybe you can help me wash my _grime_ away.”

And Barry would most definitely like that.


End file.
